To her horror the back of his hand grazed her cheek with the diamond-studded gold ring. It felt frigid to the touch, but even worse was when he extended his finger and she felt that pad of flesh against her. She struggled not to recoil or to avert her gaze from the penetrating black eyes that measured her every reaction. She strived not to cough at the strong vapor emanating from his open lips. She would give him nothing.
“
So beautiful, Señorita. So beautiful. I will enjoy having you here.” His hand slipped to her neck as he sculpted it and fanned his fingers across her shoulder.
“
You shot one of my students.”
He seemed taken aback as if he had expected her to whimper at his touch or beg for release.
“
As I saw it from here, your student was disruptive and you could not control him. My men were given orders to keep the prisoners in line by any means necessary.”
“
Prisoners.” She spit out the word as if it were snake venom. “I know that you started the fire that brought us here. This is your jungle too. You used to stay secluded, protected by a net of forestry that few would brave to trek through. Was it worth it? Was it worth it to lose that free security just to get your hands on one more archeologist?”
The
hands on
comment seemed all he focused on at first as he grinned at her breasts. But then he shook his head and stepped back, scorn marring what she had once thought was a decent looking face.
“
No, for me it was not worth it.” He stepped over to the bar and refilled his tumbler, once again holding up the decanter in tender.
Her head jerked in denial.
“
The damage is nowhere near as extensive as you think, however. We sculpted the fire to lead you directly to our front door. You were disoriented inside the flames and smoke.” He hefted the glass. “Just curious, how did you know we started it?”
Alex looked beyond him to the bank of windows, searching for Mitch amidst the soldiers pacing the courtyard.
“
One of my men noticed the empty gasoline canisters.”
Solis frowned. She banked on the fact that alcohol was reducing his clarity.
“
I’ll make sure that whoever was responsible for leaving the canisters in view is−reprimanded. Anyway, I am told that you are the last one.”
The last one of what? Told by whom? Wasn’t
he
the man in charge?
“
Alright, I’ve had enough of the dr
ama.” Alex grew impatient. If he was going to attempt to rape her, get on with it. He had no weapon that she could see, and she would exhaust all her efforts to inflict pain and thwart a sexual assault. “Why did you bring me here? I’m the last one of what?”
Solis poured more alcohol into the tumbler and once again held the glass aloft in invitation. “Seriously, you might want some.”
“
I want a goddamn answer, that’s what I want.”
Solis raised his eyebrows. “Fine, doctor. I’ll give you your goddamn answer.” He slammed the glass down and stalked towards her so fast, that Alex jolted. He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face the door, knocking her off balance.
Prepared to be thrown up against the wall, she was ready to execute a roundhouse kick and take him to his knees. But instead of attacking her, Solis reached for the door to his office and pushed her out, still clutched in his grasp.
Alex searched the corridor but there was no sign of Mitch. She prayed he had listened and escaped with the others.
But when had he ever listened
?
C
hapter Eight
Mitch punched the wall opposite Solis’s door and then spun around to lean in close and listen. The suite was well insulated with only muffled sounds escaping, but he would hear if Alex screamed, and he would kick the goddamn door down to get to her.
Son of a bitch.
Son of a bitch
.
Pacing wasn’t an option, although he doubted his boots could be heard on the thick carpet. Instead, he propped against the wall and waited with the patience of an organ recipient. A sound at the far end of the corridor jerked him into alertness. The door leading to the guard shack was opening.
Shit.
Mitch tipped his cap down and averted his head as a leg broached the entryway. He aimed for an indifferent stance as he heard the tread approach. To his dismay, the boots stopped a few feet away and the guard called out to him.
“
What are you doing here, soaking up the air conditioning? Get outside and
work
.”
Mitch nodded but did not move. He heard the gun strap slide off the man’s shoulder. “Now!”
Rather than instigate a brawl that could attract Solis’s attention and potentially blow his cover, Mitch kept his head down and shouldered past the guard. He would wait it out and get back upstairs as soon as possible.
At the bottom of the steps, he searched the courtyard for a vacant post when a voice called out from above.
“
Wait!”
Mitch stopped with his hand on the rail, but did not turn around.
Boots clamored down the metal steps and then thudded onto earth. “Turn around.”
Shit
.
Mitch pivoted, trusting that his eyes were still concealed.
As he turned he flinched. Since that day on the Newark dock, the image of a macabre smile had been locked inside his head, and now it returned from the land of the damned. A single scar at the corner of thick purple lips elongated them into a ghoulish smirk. The
Cheshire Cat
.
Nicholson was right. Mitch had discovered the dragon’s lair.
The distorted grin broadened as the guerilla extended the tip of the rifle to swat Mitch’s cap from his head. He then nodded at the sunglasses and waited.
Mitch yanked them off, glaring. Instead of being anxious, he was pissed. This was bullshit. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be back in Central Park snapping a picture of Paris Hilton’s dog taking a leak.
Alex
.
Well, yeah, there was that
.
Again the rifle was raised, and this time it scraped against Mitch’s cheekbone where he could feel it dig into his bruise. The
Cheshire Cat
chuckled like a feline overdosing on catnip.
“
Proud of that, are you?” Mitch asked in English.
It seemed that the man did not comprehend the language, but he pretty much got the gist. He
possessed the arrogance of one who was in control as he swung the barrel of the gun towards the stairs and pitched his head in the same direction. Mitch’s fingers curled up into a fist, but he knew he had no other recourse. His goal was to get back to Alex anyway−but this thug was going to expose his cover. And when he did reveal that Mitch had been on that dock in Newark, Alex was
not
going to be happy to hear she had been lied to all along.
For each step that he mounted, Mitch uttered an innovative curse against the HAA director, Philip Nicholson.
***
“
This way.” Solis pulled Alex.
At the end of corridor, in the opposite direction of the guard shack, there was an elevator. Solis swiped a keyfob dangling from his key ring at a panel lodged inside the wall. The illuminated box altered from red to green, and on a soft hiss, the brass wall slid open to reveal a mirror-plated interior.
Alex stepped inside and saw her distorted reflection cast back at her from beveled angles. The image in the mirror mocked her belief that she was strong. Shoulders that were normally pinned back in resolve had now atrophied. Her khaki shorts revealed slim, tanned legs that in her boots and white socks looked clumsy, like those of a colt. She never paid much attention to her breasts, but surely they were bigger than what she saw in the reflection. When was the last time she ate? Her normally lustrous hair looked dull yanked back into a flat ponytail. Her eyes revealed anxiety. It was the one feature that disturbed her the most.
“
We’re here.”
Solis’s deep rumble broke Alex from her reverie. By the tumble of her stomach, she sensed that they had descended, but saw no indication of it by the floor numbers. How far down could they go anyway? It was only a two story building, with possibly a cellar.
A jail
? Was he taking her to a dungeon?
The elevator slid open and Solis extended his arm.
Where in God’s name was she?
Alex walked out on numb feet and felt her jaw crack inside her head. She emerged into what resembled a Victorian hotel lobby with a two-story atrium and a vaulted ceiling speckled with mosaic stained glass panels. It reminded her of the Grand Floridian with its lustrous white wood molding. Inside the atrium, the circular foyer was furnished with marble tables and brilliant violet floral displays housed in white vases. In the center, a grand piano sat elevated on a pedestal, its onyx surface polished so bright she could see the reflection of the chandelier above it. That weighty chandelier was comprised of nearly a hundred miniature lamps stacked in ascending symmetrical order to produce a prism effect across the black piano face.
Alex could have likened herself to Alice in Wonderland, but Alice’s world seemed much more coherent than this.
“
Where the hell are we?” she whispered.
“
We’re not there yet,” Solis took on the role of the white rabbit as he seemed impatient now and extracted a cell phone from his shirt pocket, glancing at it and then dropping it back in place.
“
This way.” He motioned.
Walking around a potted
kapok
, Alex heard water and was astonished to see a fountain inset in the wall. Burgundy cushioned seats circled its base−a place for weary travelers to sit and socialize…only there were no travelers. As they progressed, the only sound was the splash of water and the footfalls of her boots against the silver and black-veined marble. Solis’s loafers made a slight scraping noise, some of the dirt from the courtyard stuck in the grooves of his heel grating against the smooth surface. They crossed the vestibule and stopped before yet another elevator. This time Alex noted that he pressed the DOWN button.
Inside the mirror-plated chamber, Solis did not meet her eyes. His head was downcast and he hoisted out his cell phone again.
How could you possibly get a signal in hell?
Surely that was their destination if they kept going south.
The motion of the elevator stopped and Alex shook off a brief spell of inertia as the doors slid open.
Beside her, Solis glanced at her with a curious expression on his face. It was half-smile, half-condemnation.
“
Welcome to Xibalba, Doctor,” he said and stepped outside.
Alex hesitated, her boot literally suspended in the air, afraid to break the barrier. Curiosity beset her with a vengeance as she stepped onto the bed of limestone, struggling to keep from dropping to her knees and caressing her hand across the pockmarked surface. If only she was in possession of her equipment−but even the paraphernalia that was consumed by the fire back at her camp was inadequate for this task. Auger cores would be necessary to date the limestone−
“
Señorita!” Solis stood at her side. “Look up.”
Alex dragged her glance away from the marvel of the ancient floor and gasped.
It was the echo to Solis’s voice that should have first alerted her. They stood in a chamber so vast it could easily have accommodated several 747’s in a row, and probably a couple stacked on top of each other. It resembled a colossal underground cavern the likes of which she had only seen in movies. There was no external source of light, and yet the nurture of the sun was emulated from resources embedded in the rock walls. These cave walls were layered with what she imagined was synthetic flowstone meant to mimic nature and appear as if they had been carved by running water. The limestone walkway that she stood on was flanked on both sides by coarse tropical grass and the thick trunks of impossibly tall
kapok
trees. Her head jerked at the shrill cry of a macaw as a flourish of blue and red feathers took flight from one limb to the next and then stopped to stare at her with yellow-rimmed eyes.
So fascinated with the essence of the jungle around her, Alex nearly lost track of Solis. He was now five paces ahead, and in seeking him out, she caught a glimpse of what lie beyond him. The blood drained from her face and she reached out for something to hold onto, staggering a step to the left until she could rest her hand on a wrought iron bench.
Fifty yards away, ascending from the ground like an ethereal pyramid, a temple dominated the cavern, towering over 150 feet. At the summit of the majestic staircase mounted on its face, she could discern the customary funerary shrine, and in her conjecture, guessed this to be a replica of the Temple of the Jaguar from Tikal’s Great Plaza.
Xibalba
. Solis had referred to this place as Xibalba. In Maya mythology, Xibalba represented the underworld. The “Place of Fear” ruled by the Maya death gods.